Foreigner to donate $1,000 to Wilson High School

by jmaloni

Sat, Aug 14th 2010 04:05 pm

Wilson High School music department students.

by Joshua Maloni

Foreigner
has teamed up with VH1's Save the Music Foundation to support the continuation
of arts programs in schools across the U.S. When the band performs as part of
Artpark's "Tuesday in the Park" concert series on Aug. 17, $1,000 will be
donated to Wilson High School.

"The reality
is that, because of the way the economy is ... there were a lot of budget cuts
going on, and the first thing that gets cut is the arts," Foreigner frontman
Kelly Hansen said. "The odd thing that I see in that is that the arts is what
makes people well-rounded and makes them complete human beings."

Hansen said
students who only study math or science or the traditional meat-and-potatoes
courses are missing out.

"You need a
balance of all those things (including the arts), and to take away a big chunk
of balance is devastating - and I see it happening all the time, as everybody
in the band does," he said.

Foreigner is
working with Save the Music to call attention to what band members consider a
worthwhile cause.

"Since we're
in the music part of the arts, we felt that this was something that we could do
to try to raise awareness and also to contribute to the bands that are coming
on stage and help their music departments at a time where they're getting less
and less money and less and less ability to pursue what's so important in all
these kids' lives," Hansen said.

"We just
decided we needed to do something, and this is what we could do," he added.

Wilson music
department students will join Foreigner on stage for a performance of "I Want
to Know What Love Is."